Cait the Encourageable

Cait is a grandmother, activist, translator (🇫🇷 🇩🇪 🇷🇺 > 🇬🇧), writer, artist, musician, gamer, footy fan, and learning to be a flirt (show me yer shoulders, sweetie!). Transition 11/92, HRT 11/94.

Hugs and light flirting welcome. I will never lie about your appearance. #ProudToBeTrans

Striving every day to be anti-racist & equity-based. I have a #PrivilegeJar.

Selfies happen.

🏳️‍⚧️: trans rights are human rights

YouTube: Historical gaming, war gaming, and Football Manager

#nobot

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nprofile1qqs9r76wlshlm4vpejgsg4dcwqql7rjy5lhrs5akft6knkny57m6k7spz4mhxue69uhhyetvv9ujumt0wd68ytnsw43qesfq00

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Last Notes

2024-04-17 02:12:09

Hey, anyone know of a job opportunity for a brilliant nuclear physicist with skills to pay the bills? She's located in the Bay Area of California in the US. Check her account for a recent post on her outline of her skills:
https://chaosfem.tw/@rooster/112283186578656777
Boosts welcome.
@npub12l3…qgjv

2024-04-04 22:39:55

A friend of mine with a functioning uterus told me recently she was having an IED put in, to keep her from getting pregnant.
I said I thought that was a little extreme, and that maybe an IUD would be better.

2024-03-31 16:11:19

A cis man's take on Trans Day of Visibility and Easter Sunday being on the same day this year. It won't go where you think it will, based on how he looks and talks. Give him a shot, and see if you still feel that way when he's finished talking.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fTwb0yTuy1E
And special bonus video: He also offered some dating advice a few years ago that has some relevance.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=m0XX6OxfTNs

2024-03-20 15:03:07

Do you know anyone who came out as trans or nonbinary as a teenager?
I would love to speak with someone who's been through this, with an eye to getting their thoughts down on video for use in my work on "My Kid is Coming Out: What Do I Do Next?"
Can be as anonymous as you like, we can blur your image, change your voice, whatever. But I'd really love to have the voice of experience in this particular video. What I'm looking for is about two or three minutes on how it was, how it went, what could have been better.
Anyone? Anyone? Bueller?

2024-03-07 14:50:14

Let me say this once, loudly for those in the back.
BISEXUAL PEOPLE DON'T CEASE TO BE BI BECAUSE THEY'RE IN STRAIGHT-PASSING RELATIONSHIPS.
Ditto pansexual people. I will demonstrate the absurdity of this position.
I am pansexual. According to the logic of this belief, I would NOT be pan, because I'm not *currently* sleeping with one person at least of every gender.
So if I achieved this status somehow (my loins ache from the thought, that's so wearying), would it no longer apply if I stopped seeing my left-handed nonbinary transfemme partner, until I could find a new one for the slot (as it were)?
It's a foolish contention, and one which we should really put out of circulation.

2024-03-07 14:28:33

So...I have some thoughts about this topic. I did transition in 1992, when things were very different.
One of the things I regret about transitioning when I did, is that I got co-opted (coercively) into helping propagate the myth that all trans people were women, that all knew when they were little, all that bullshit that Blanchard and his ilk created. The stereotypical trans woman.
I am that woman. All of those stereotypes apply to me.
This is not coincidence. This is due to the direct and explicit efforts of the doctors to *create* this narrative, by viciously gatekeeping access to medical transition from anyone who didn't fit into it.
And yeah, I have some regret over that. I hate that I contributed, even coercively, in creating a narrative that caused so much damage to so many trans people.
I cannot count the number of trans friends I've made in the last year and a half who say, "Hey, I looked at what being trans was, and it didn't fit me, so I didn't transition."
I feel the weight of that sometimes. The untold number of us who must not have made it after facing that stereotype.
I feel used. I feel rage toward Blanchard and Zucker, who both worked out of the clinic I transitioned at (perforce; there were no other non-DIY options).
And this is the part where I feel an urge to apologize to y'all. I'm not going to, because I recognize that's a pathological response to this violence done to me, and to you.
But I think I will always have regret that I couldn't hold on longer, until that narrative no longer was extant. Probably I wouldn't have made it. In my dark moments, I wonder if that wouldn't have been better for the community. Not because I don't recognize my own value. Because I hate having contributed to this.
It's complex, for sure.

2024-03-05 15:00:13

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@npub125j…hlwy
I have seen this with taxis (which never see the number on my huge apartment building, drive right past and up the street where their GPS tells them to, wrongly), and with delivery drivers (who often are directed to the back door, which I cannot open remotely for them, by their GPS).
@npub1ugp…cz6m @npub1hyk…3p33 @npub17x7…naa8

2024-03-04 13:25:21

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@npub1px0…7698
Forgive me saying so, but that's a rather sad attempt at accessibility. Alt-text is the gold standard. But simply saying what colours the information is backgrounded with is not useful for viewers with low vision resources.
Please consider using the alt-text feature to describe your images properly, or use the hashtag #AltText4Me to ask someone else if they can pick up the slack. To properly describe, enter the text on the image, and describe it visually only as much as needed to convey the useful information.
Thanks for your attention to this.

2024-02-29 13:05:29

With thanks to @npub1ctr…u8e7 for the link, there is a bathroom guide for trans masc people too!
https://www.autostraddle.com/a-trans-guys-guide-to-the-mens-bathroom/

2024-02-27 14:50:18

I made a new account to cover my second YouTube channel. It's over at chaosfem.tw: @npub14u2…sz9q
Feel free to follow, and boost the account; it's where I'll be announcing videos as they drop. Otherwise, it'll be quiet.

2024-02-27 08:58:27

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@npub104f…sllm @npub164l…qy04 @npub1qjk…klx6
LOL, I figure I'm nearly 60, that's a fair descriptor.

2024-02-23 13:35:45

I am fully infertile.
I want to get that out of the way up front, because it's true. I have no dog in the fight.
But I want to state, unequivocally and clearly, that I stand with those who have the equipment for giving birth on the topic of abortion, and IVF, and any other power grabs the right comes up with to control the bodies of birthing people.
For me, it's an issue we as trans people should be fighting as hard for as we fight for our own direct issues. Bodily autonomy applies. It's the same basic issue motivating both anti-trans and anti-abortion campaigners: control of others' bodies.
When we fight for abortion access, we are indirectly and directly still fighting for trans people. We're fighting for trans masc and AFAB enby people to be given full rights over their own bodies. That's the direct path. We're also fighting for the right for all trans people to control our bodies.
So let's stand beside our uterine neighbours, trans women. We are all in the same fight.

2024-02-18 14:24:30

I like my body.
It's been a long time since I first said that, a matter of decades.
But I do. Fat as it is, decrepit as it is with the pain, it's my body, and I like it. And it doesn't hurt right now that I have Michael in one ear telling me how damn hot I am, or how much he wants to...well, anyway.
This is not to say I don't think I could enjoy some changes. But I don't need them; I just want 'em. I want to feel a little more sexy.
I think my main regret right now is that I don't have more people to share that joy with. People who'd desire me like Michael does, who'd like cuddling, that kind of thing.
It'll happen at some point. Or it won't. Life is like that. But either way, when I arrive at that point, I will still be glad I got there.

2024-02-14 15:49:25

Today's Groove of the Day comes in two flavours, English and Deutsch. It is, à propos de rien, on my mind today: Kraftwerk's "The Model". Also here, the German version, "Das Model". I was fascinated by this pair of songs as a teen, the cleverness in producing a song that is quite similar in two different languages just impressed the shit out of me.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GEnx9xS79Lc
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=o0iga1eNgvA

2024-02-14 00:46:41

Okay, several people on my list who could answer this one, I think.
My friend Ashie is looking for a way to find out the gender of the provinces of Canada in French. We have them obviously for BC (f), QC (m), SK (f), MB (m), and the three territories (all masculin). But Terre-Neuve et Labrador? PEI? L'Ontario, L'Alberta?
I do not know how to answer these last four. Any of my Francophone friends care to weigh in? Responses in French are always welcome, if you prefer.

2024-02-11 17:39:05

https://youtube.com/watch?v=8FYZ6m06bDU
This is a video from British Pathé films, about Christine Jorgensen.
When I was 13, in the grips of dysphoria so bad I was crying myself to sleep most nights, I went to the Toronto Reference Library, one of my comfort hangouts, to wander the stacks and read stuff. I ran into a librarian I knew there, an older gay man, who I'd spoken to a few times.
This time I decided to come clean with him. I told him what I'd been feeling, what I'd known since I was 4, that I was a girl.
He looked at me, and said he thought he knew a book that might help. The book he brought me was a biography of Christine Jorgensen, a minor actor in the 1950s in New York who is the first American known to have had bottom surgery. She transitioned publicly in that era, and went on to have a few film roles as herself.
It was this that introduced me for the first time to the word "transsexual" (which was the word at the time; transgender came later). It gave me a label for what was going on with me, and it gave me hope. Transition existed! It could be done!
I was so excited I virtually hovered above my seat on the subway home. I wasn't some complete freak who was unlike anyone else. There was a word for me. That implied there were other people like me.
And there was a treatment. Something could be done.
It was one of the most hopeful days of my life.
Until I got home, anyway. My mother was there. I was excited, I raced in, and told her, "I have a word, I know what's going on with me, I'm transsexual!"
And she FLIPPED. "Don't ever say that word again! Don't let (her husband) hear you say it. You know what he's like."
Within six months, I was in conversion therapy.
But this book, this day...remain locked in my memory from that singular day. And this video, this old filmreel, is about her. My inspiration.

2024-02-10 13:59:14

That woman in the mirror.
I tried again this morning. I used a small handheld mirror this time, thinking maybe it'd be easier to be closer to it.
I got as far as "I lo-" before I choked up and couldn't finish.
This is really stupidly hard to do. I think because I don't like lying to myself about things, and I don't know that I'm completely convinced that I love myself, or that I deserve to.
Tomorrow morning I try Lona's suggestion. And see if I can make it over the hump.
So far, still the Little Engine That Couldn't.

2024-02-09 14:56:55

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@npub1xjt…9ml2
Oh gosh no! Disaster. This is why I won't use my phone on the toilet, because I'm quite sure I'm clumsy enough to drop it in every time.
I hope it dries out well, and works okay when it does.

2024-01-30 13:50:21

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@npub15nw…s0l7
So you just came to complain? Okay player. See ya.

2024-01-30 12:33:06

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@npub15nw…s0l7
For a pair of top-quality glasses, that's not unreasonable. It is inevitable that they're going to be more expensive at their current size, as they don't have economies of scale on their side yet.

2024-01-30 01:27:29

I don't know who on my followers list might need this info, but this is so awesome I couldn't help but share. The company is Reframd (https://www.reframd.com), and they make racially diverse eyeglass frames to fit faces other than the "default" white man or woman.
I realise anyone who needs the link probably already knows about it, but on the off chance anyone might find it useful, I pass it along. I just love to see companies come along who see gaps in the market, and work to fill them with good products - like trans-owned binder makers, or Black-owned frame-makers. Money goes back into the community, people get stuff that suits them better, it's a huge win-win.
Yes, a hundred times better would be the big chains doing this. I've never noticed a "Black faces" section in any chain frame store. More power to Reframd.

2024-01-24 23:18:46

Just spent two hours in a meeting. Providing feedback on the Ontario government health info website, https://Health811.ontario.ca
We were specifically working on the Medical Library portion of the website, if you're following along at home. The UX in particular.
But the first problem I noted was that this medical library was a) not a true computer search, but a stupid card catalogue in digital form; and 2) didn't contain the word "transgender". In any context.
I made some pithy points about how this clearly reflects our government's cavalier attitude toward trans health care in general. Someone made a noise about how being trans isn't a sickness, which I appreciated on a whole different level than the intent, which was to erase us. I said yes, you're right, but it's still health care, and needs to have information provided to Ontarians who need it.
And the card catalogue...OMG. Their search has no capacity for dealing with common spelling errors, no capacity for synonyms, no keyword search (only title search, with exact match).
And at one point, they said they had to use four options to direct their Chat users, because they had four departments to offer. I asked why they needed to make their corporate structure our problem? You can make multiple options point to one department. We don't need to know how many departments there are.
Argh. Just a frustrating experience, and you wonder whether they had any ordinary humans test the site before deployment, or just the UX designers themselves.
OH, but I did get well paid for attending.
OH ALSO, the website does have a huge list of links to medical journal articles about transgender health care. These are not available from the Medical Library. You have to search the keyword on the main site search to get the list of articles.

2024-01-23 21:59:58

Hey yo, my trans bros! Calling the trans mascs of Fedi, I want to hear the words and gestures that bring you #TransJoy. I'm being selfish. I'm looking for ways to make my boyfriend feel better about himself. He's so good at affirming me, and I want to get better at affirming him. And I suspect you're just the men/masc-folk for the job.
Help me Obi-Trans Kenobi! You're my only hope!

2024-01-11 06:23:28

Well, Google, ya gone and done it.
I just uninstalled Chrome, and installed Firefox. The last two days, YouTube turned to shit on me - won't load videos, is clearly heavily throttled. I switch to Firefox - YouTube works perfectly.
If you've been putting off abandoning Chrome, it's a LOT easier than I expected. Firefox imported my history, my logins/passwords, bookmarks, and so on. Completely painless. Chrome has become thoroughly enshittified. Leave it behind.

2024-01-05 01:09:47

I just love - for some value of "love" - that with a wave of Swatting calls happening across the US as Trumpists get their jollies threatening peoples' lives, there's a media wave talking about it.
And no one, NO ONE, is talking about the fact that the only reason this works is because the police can be reasonably relied upon to be overly violent. They're all talking about how this is an escalation of violence. But none wants to make the connection to the police' overuse of excessive force. No journalists are asking "why, whose violence are we talking about?"
Abolition now. ACAB.

2024-01-05 00:25:12

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@npub1vx2…nst2
Well, France gave the statue of liberty to the US to celebrate the end of slavery, and the US turned it into a celebration of white immigrants.
I'd be reluctant to give a big showy gift to the US anymore too.

2023-12-29 00:23:16

Part 2:
We went down to the dock, and my sister and I got on an air mattress (she was 12), while my dad just jumped in and went for a swim.
We paddled around a bit, and then saw my dad waving from the next dock over. He looked at us, grinned, and ducked under the water. He didn't resurface where we could see him. The hunt was on. Hide and seek. Super fun in the sun. We were splashing and laughing, calling out to him, saying "Marco" and things, but he didn't reply. As we got closer to the dock where we'd seen him, the water started hurting us. Anything dipped in the water started to cramp painfully. We finally got close enough to the dock to reach a rope on the edge, pull ourselves in, and I heaved her up onto the dock. I got out myself, barely, with the water making my legs hurt immensely. Familiarly.
I called out for Dad, who should have been able to hear us shouting and crying. No answer. No sight of him. We started freaking out some, and other people came. Someone called 911. When firefighters showed up, I showed them where we'd last seen him...and looking down into the water of that clear lagoon, I saw a pale shape under the water at the bottom of the dock stanchion.
Soon enough it was figured out that the painful water was electricity, and it was turned off. The boat was trickle-charging at the dock, the neighbours not home for the weekend. Extension cord, water, tidal action...pain.
The police diver got my dad out of the water, and they tried to revive him on the dock, but he was gone. What we'd taken for his playful grin was his rictus mortis - the death smile, as his hands grabbed the metal pole and his heart was stopped. Quick, at least. He didn't drown, the autopsy found.
Anyway, cue mother's arrival by emergency flight, and our subsequent flight home to Edmonton (where he lived), and the memorial service. And my lifelong dread fear of electricity.

2023-12-29 00:21:01

I've told this story before, but I can't find (and probably deleted by accident) my posts in which I did so. So I'm reconstituting it here.
-=-=-
So...when I was 13, I was busy stealing the few things I had for relief of dysphoria. We were quite poor, and I didn't have any way to otherwise acquire things. I got caught once. When the time came to go to court, my mother agreed to the judge's request that I attend a "reparative therapy" session, to see if I could be cured of my shamefulness.
And that was how I met conversion therapy. First aversive techniques: mild pain, dysphoric language, shouting, denial of reality. Then severe mockery - a group of cis girls was brought in, who mocked me and the other attendees for our lack of manliness.
So far, not so bad, yeah? That's why the next step was electricity. Those same TENS units, or something quite similar, was attached to my wrist and elbows (remember, I'm 13 here). And every time I insisted I was a girl, ZAP, turned up to 11. Painful af.
Eventually they gave it up as a hopeless case. The "therapists" reported to my mother that I couldn't be fixed, but would just have to learn to hide my shame better. By now, I was thoroughly terrified of electricity, which I've never lost.
But wait! That's not all! Tell them what else they've won, Jonny!
Cut to the summer of 1981. I'm 15 now. My father, long since divorced from my mum, lives out west, and my sister and I go visit him for a summer trip. We take a camper shell pickup (cabover type) through the mountains to Vancouver, then down the coast to San Francisco, before cutting back up through the mountains to Tahoe (where my dad had a girlfriend). The drive up to Tahoe was really hot in late August, and when we got to the townhouse where she lived with her roommates (flight atts), we decided to go swimming. Her townhouse backed onto the lake itself, via a little lagoon.
Part 2: https://wargamers.social/@oldladyplays/111660616663823798. Yes, it's worse.

2023-12-23 00:38:31

I cannot get over the rank stupidity of abstinence-based "sexual education". In quotes because it's the opposite: they do their work by trying to NOT give info to the kids.
Because, they're thinking, of course if kids don't find out about how to do sex, then obviously they won't do any sex, because they won't know how, ha-ha, checkmate you dumb kids!
But hear me out: sex isn't difficult to figure out. "Hey, does this feel good? Yes. No, not that. This. Yep. Keep doing that. How's this? Good? Good."
What they won't know is how to keep themselves safer, how to not be pregnant, what a good relationship looks like, how to communicate with your partner. All the things that make for successful living together.
They're deliberately setting their kids up for failure, and claiming it makes them holier than everyone else. It's kind of enraging.

2023-12-19 18:07:09

A thought, about girl talk.
I note how often - and I've done this too - I hear trans women saying with excitement about how they were just chatting with a cis woman, and how it was just girl talk, and how great that was.
And on one hand, I'm like, yeah, it's great when that happens, happy for you, genuinely.
But on the gripping hand, I'm like, yeah, it's too bad we don't recognize that *when a group of trans women talk, that is by definition "girl talk"*. And in my experience, the topics aren't much different. Every day I read about this in various trans-focused Discord servers or here on Fedi, and it makes me just a little sad that we have to reach for the validation of cis people to make it real for us.
We count too, my loves. We count too.

2023-11-14 21:44:11

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@npub18wj…lvmv A brew pub with seafood:
Tap That Bass

2023-11-14 21:33:46

Names for a punny fish restaurant, go.
The Coddage
Kois R Us
iTunas
...
Your turn.

2023-10-25 15:30:19

I don't know who needs to hear this, but once and for fucking all:
My dudes. My brothers in the Spaghetti Monster. You don't have to "NO HOMO" on a trans girl's picture post. No one thinks you're gay for being attracted to a hot woman. It is stupid and hurtful to assert your straightness on a post about a trans woman's picture, as though being attracted made you gay. Just FYI.
If you don't want people to call you a bigot, maybe try not being a bigot?

2023-10-19 09:47:53

Alright, one enraging thing about the coverage of the brutality in Gaza.
Seeing Fox News point at various Muslim countries and say, "Hey, do you know how awful these guys are to gays and trans people?"
And I'm thinking, what, as opposed to you, using stochastic terrorism against us?
It's just fucking rich to hear them point at someone else's homophobia and transphobia as a reason to not like them.

2023-10-14 15:27:59

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@npub1psd…9sr7
It's basically anime-ified. Her eyes are rounder, eyebrows plucked to within a few mm of life, and a mouth tiny enough to fit in to any anime. She also has been made to look much younger.
This is, in other words, the apex of the male gaze version of Mona Lisa, after the notoriously not hetero da Vinci gave us a more true-to-life one.
AI shows its ass again, with its misogynist take on a fascinating painting.

2023-09-30 16:28:21

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@npub189n…satx @npub1gpe…q6xk
All the research I've been able to do has said there are no other democracies in which this happens. All other democracies have some automatic funding mechanism to keep government functioning at all times. I specify democracies because who knows what happens in autocracies.

2023-09-22 00:49:16

I'll tell you this much - I never (in 1992) thought I'd see a day when hundreds of people in my community would gather at 9am on a Wednesday to defend the rights of trans kids to transition safely.
Never could have imagined it.
In 1994, when I attempted to get the gender marker changed on my passport, I was quite literally laughed out of the office by the staff, who were telling each other what a joke I was in the broad hearing of everyone in the room.
That was in this town.
In 1993, when I was jumped by a group of fascists and beaten senseless.
That was in this town.
In 1992, when I'd transitioned, I was kicked out of my housing by my landlord, no notice, just get your stuff and get out. I was merely fortunate to find an apartment nearby that I could afford within a couple of days.
That was in this town.
So I am deeply moved by the number of people who showed up yesterday, not all of them queer themselves, to help defend trans kids.
People spreading the message of trans joy and trans life and trans love.
It makes me again #ProudToBeTrans.

2023-09-11 18:47:11

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@npub1ver…dmhy @npub1zdp…vqv8
And this is why I live an out life as a trans person these days. Having transitioned 31 years ago, I remind people by my existence that trans people have been around for a lot longer than it might have been obvious.
We were invisible because in those days, the standards under which we were permitted to access medical transition required us to be "stealth" after we transitioned, living entirely pretending to be cis women, cutting all ties with people in your former life, and so on. It was a shattering traumatic way to require things be done, and became (for me) exhausting. I stopped after 12 years, though I maintained my privacy in some contexts.
Just figured that might not be a perspective people here would have.

2023-09-11 18:14:31

White People Listen to Black People Challenge - rated nearly impossible.

2023-09-04 06:54:19

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@npub189n…satx
Are you kidding? I'm English. By definition, my ancestors were racist, murderous fuckwads who colonized the fucking world. It's a shite state of affairs.

2023-08-21 15:15:05

Hey there - does anyone in Toronto know anything about a hostel near Kensington called "The Planet Traveller"? I have a friend who's booking with them, and would like to hear from someone who's got knowledge of whether the place is clean and safe (as hostels go).
Boosts welcome.

2023-08-20 16:12:01

Heyo, stavlets, and welcome. Happy to have you here, feel free to come or go as you please. I don't post a whole bunch, but I try to put some meat on the bone when I do. I try to only boost things with images if they have alt-text, because I have several followers who use screen readers. If I fail at that, do feel free to let me know.
I'm happy to respond to comments in French, German, Russian, or English, and I'll do my best with Spanish and Japanese comments.
Thanks to the lovely and talented @npub18yl…pegw for the stavlet wave. :)

2023-08-19 09:41:01

Been reading a couple of threads over at @npub1zdp…vqv8 about feminism and the life of men.
And it's appalling to me how many of the men responding pointed at feminism as the cause of their pain and suffering as men. That feminism had taken away their ability to be manly.
This is only true if your definition of manly includes "oppresses women regularly". Feminism has been a positive for society in many ways, not least being the de-emphasis on strictly segregated gender roles. It is the patriarchy, and men's control of it, which is keeping these men down - the hierarchy placing men who treat women as objects above men who treat us as people in our own right.
It is patently absurd to suggest that feminism is to blame for men's troubles; it is their internal sense of being required to fulfill rigid gender roles, among which is the imperative to dominate rather than be equals with women, that is bringing them pain. Feminism fights against those rigid roles. We're trying to free men from having to set themselves up with blinders on. Feminism fights against the idea that only women who are "fuckable" have value. It is this concept, rather than feminism, which keeps men in the incel community.

2023-08-16 22:04:31

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@npub189n…satx
Thanks for that, very informative. I love natural hair on Black folk - it's so lovely to look at, I can't for the life of me understand why so many white people hate it so much. I mean, yeah, racism, but...it's a weirdly specific hatred. All the wonderful forms of Black hair that people have come up with are so beautiful too - besides being practical for the reasons noted above.
In short, white people suck. Thanks for coming to my TED talk.

2023-07-22 19:08:03

I hate this word, hugboxing. It positions our communities as habitual liars, spewing any positive lie out there to make our friends feel better.
I think this is a negative term for our community, because it provides a convenient excuse for dysphoria to hang its lies on. "Oh, I'm not really pretty, every single one of my alleged friends is lying to me" is not what I'd call a result.
Here's a radical idea: believe your damn friends! Most of us are not habitual liars, any more than you are. If someone offers you a compliment in good faith, take it in good faith. Especially from someone who's established themselves as a friend.
If you can't trust your friends, either you need better friends, or you need some help learning to trust (again, maybe?).
Friends don't accuse one another of hugboxing. It's just a fancy word for lying, anyway.
Uso ja nai, MIhashi-kun.

2023-07-03 13:58:32

Realised lately that I really like my life, myself, my body, my whole existence, in a way I never thought I would. It's so satisfactory to feel so complete.
The Member of Parliament that I worked on the petition with (Mike Morrice, Green Party Kitchener Centre) spotted me at the gala I attended last Thursday, and while hugging me, he said he'd been meaning to tell me. Ever since the petition got big, they've been receiving, daily in the office, emails from trans youth all over the world saying how much of a hero I am to them.
I cried right then and there, of course, because estrogen. I never imagined in my wildest dreams as a scared teen that one day I'd be an activist for trans existence, or that people might look up to me for it. (I don't recommend this, by the way, I wear a lot of skirts and you might get to see more than you wanted.)
Yet here I am. And I'll tell you this: they'll take the microphone out of my cold dead hand before I stop advocating for us.
Cis people: if you want to be on the right side of history, come with me.

2023-07-02 09:47:50

Hello, my Twitter-leaving new friends! Lovely to have some new folks following, that's always pleasant.
My tips for enjoying the Fediverse:
1) Follow hashtags. This is a neat feature of the Fedi, You can literally follow a hashtag.
2) Follow people who are different from you. Open your world to new ideas and new people. Unlike Twitter, moderation exists here, and the admins and mods do a lot of great work keeping Fedi as safe as possible. You're not likely to accidentally run into a pocket of right-wing fanatics.
3) Your Home timeline is not algorithm-driven. It picks up all the people you follow, and the hashtags, and puts their posts in chronological order (mostly) in your timeline. This means you're the driver of how busy it is.
4) Ignore all the people with "you must do this to be Fedi enough" attitudes. Yes, you should use alt-text, and CW, and a bunch of other stuff, but you'll learn that over time, as you acclimate to the culture here. Don't let anyone make you feel unwelcome because you don't know it yet.
5) Do make an #Introduction post when you have time. People regularly read that hashtag, and respond to new people.
Enjoy your time here. Follow a bunch of people, and grow from there. And remember our numbers are smaller here - it takes a bit longer to grow your follower numbers, but the engagement is reportedly (by recent Twitter migrants) more effective than Twitter has been in many months.
#Twitter #TwitterDown #NewHere #Introduction

2023-06-25 13:12:20

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@npub1zdp…vqv8 @npub13xd…d4c3 Unchecked corruption. Their logistics are constantly weakened by corrupt supply NCOs selling things on the black market - food, fuel, and so on. Recruits are able to bribe their way out of hard training. Lack of supplies mean exercises are hollow and meaningless, and training is curtailed (no ammo). Substance use is rampant, thus absenteeism is also.
Morale is, predictably, quite poor, and there is no sense of unit cohesion. These are militarily death sentences for a unit and its soldiers. Unit cohesion is crucial - soldiers fight for their friends beside them, if they have any. With no unit cohesion, they won't fight as well, if they fight at all.
Basically, Putin's government got the army it deserved, one just as corrupt and useless as it is.

2023-06-20 09:21:32

Two zines linked below (from an archive of old trans printed material), one from 1997 and one from 1993. It's very weirdly nostalgic to hear them talking in the language of that time.
I'd kind of blocked out remembering how everyday an occurrence vicious transphobia was. That's the biggest change, I think, in the cis-het community since then, is the growing number who are at least neutral about us. Also, the open hostility to the cis queer communities about their lack of acceptance of our existence at the time.
The hardcore opposed are still there, but the low-lying instant hostility from almost everyone...I know some of you still live that life where you are, but here at least it's shifted.
It's an interesting trip through the distant past of our community.
https://transreads.org/wp-content/uploads/2021/07/2021-07-19_60f5972c46eec_Unapologetic.pdf
https://transreads.org/wp-content/uploads/2022/12/2022-12-13_6398b871511f9_gendertrashfromhell1.pdf

2023-05-30 00:58:07

The petition I started was presented in Parliament today, which resulted in my name - MY FUCKING NAME - being read into the Parliamentary Record (AKA Hansard) forever. Someone searching Hansard could find my name in it. I am unreasonably nerdily excited by this. Some history grad student will write an essay about this time eventually, and they will find my name in the record, before writing that essay that no one but their prof will ever read. Woo-hoo! I'm FAMOUS!
Anyway, what that means is the government has 45 days to respond. That puts it about two weeks after Pride month ends, which is a pretty good time to be pressing the government on a queer-focused issue.

2023-05-19 20:25:42

Just for old times' sake, my petition to allow US and UK trans and nonbinary people fleeing transphobic laws and a potential genocide to claim asylum in Canada? Well, it closes in just under one week. At the moment, we're about sixteen thousand signatures short of the second-most signatures on any Canadian petition to the government. Ever.
So I'm gonna send this around one more time, with the hope that Canadians will see it, sign it, and pass it along. You will need a Canadian address (a real one) to fill out the form.
https://petitions.ourcommons.ca/en/Petition/Details?Petition=e-4268
Disponible en français ici:
https://petitions.noscommunes.ca/fr/Petition/Details?Petition=e-4268
Thanks for your attention; boosts and x-posts to other social media welcomed.

2023-03-31 17:40:58

Welp. It's #[0].
I'm pretty visibly trans all the time, thanks to my wardrobe choices and my hairstyle. Oh, and my choice to live as a public trans person all the time, so trans kids know they can do it in this city, and cis people know we're already here, and have been here for many years.
I want to take a moment and shout out my #[1] and #[2] people too - too often, while we are hypervisible as trans women, they are invisible as trans men and nonbinary people. Cis people reading along, remember that transness comes in several flavours, and they're all valid and brilliant and wonderful.
Cis people...if you see a trans person being harassed, step into that if you're safe to. Walk confidently to the trans person, say "Hi, remember me? We met last week at that work function." Or some similar pattern of words that makes it clear you know who the person is, and yet you're new enough to maybe need a reminder on name.
Just seeing a cis ally step in will help a lot, both with being the trans person under attack, and with deterring the bullies from continuing. You can ask, for instance, "Sorry, did I interrupt a conversation?"
Sound risky? I know. But imagine you're the trans person facing it without an ally. Feel much, much riskier? Yeah.
We need you, right now. We need to know you have our backs, in real life, even when it's risky for you some. It's a risky time. It's accomplice time.

2023-03-29 21:37:49

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#[0]
Single-stall washrooms are a good addition if possible.
Does your benefit plan cover trans health care completely? if not, find out what it would cost to get it included.
What does your company do if one employee refuses to use the name and pronouns of a colleague? Whose rights will win out, the free speech or the right to a harassment-free workplace?
What do you do if a client insists they won't work with a gay or trans employee?
Take some time and brainstorm around these things, you should be able to come up with more ideas and scenarios that will help inform your policy choices.

2023-03-29 14:57:27

I've seen a lot of crap being put about on the idea of parents' rights. I want to reject this idea outright.
THERE IS NO SUCH THING AS PARENTS' RIGHTS.
Parents do not have "rights" over their children. The children have rights; the parents have responsibilities to see that those rights are upheld.
In order for the parents to have rights, then necessarily the child does not have them. The only situation in which we have allowed one human to usurp another's rights was slavery; and I would argue children are not property.
If they're not property, then they're people, and if they're people, then they have rights. If they have rights, parents can't.
This is such a crucial distinction. The parents don't have a right to have their child educated; the child has a right to a good education. The parents don't have the right to participate in sport; the child does. And so on.
Once you reframe the idea like this, that children are human beings with their own rights, you see what a disingenous line of attack this is from the right wing.
Parents have an awesome responsibility: the care and management of the human rights of beings not able to assert them for themselves. But it must be clear that the rights belong to the children, and that they are being safeguarded, not owned, by the parents.
This simple conceptual shift shows that children should have full bodily autonomy, including consent to touch from anyone, and including the right to present as the gender they want. The right to religion, or freedom from it if they want. The rights are theirs, and the parents should have no power to abrogate those rights without due care and consideration.
Yes, by the way, I am a parent, as well as a grandparent. I stand by this. My kids are not my property, never were.

2023-02-25 11:00:53

Thought it was a good time to update my #[0] post.
I'm Cait, mid-50s, GenX, hard left, and a trans elder. I do YouTube, where I play #[1] and board #[2].
I was raised #[3]. I prefer Marx to Jesus (much better class analysis, and a gnarly beard).
I am #[4]. I transitioned in late 1992, and began HRT about 2 years later. I believe in informed consent as the sole model for trans self-ID. The Harry Benjamin standards were cis-centred bullshit. Today, I live as the public trans person in my community - voluntarily conceding my passing privilege to instead be visible to trans kids as a role model.
I'm physically and mentally #[5], with severe depression and a spine made of cracked billiard balls. I live with #[6] from a car accident when I was 21. I use a cane for mobility.
I have #[7]. I am wordy af. I support myself by teaching cishet people about the queer community.
I strive to be #[8] every day. #[9] #[10]
I live according to the Marxist principle, "From each according to their ability, to each according to their need." If you need something, ask: if I have it to spare, it's yours.
I use many parentheses, unusual words, and generally the Oxford comma.
Lastly, I'm a polyglot. As noted in my profile, I retired from a career as a translator of 🇫🇷 🇷🇺 🇩🇪 -> 🇬🇧, and I also speak 🇪🇸 and 🇯🇵. I can understand a fair bit of 🇳🇱, 🇳🇴, 🇸🇪, and 🇵🇹.
Oh, yeah, and I can be a little fucking sweary sometimes.